You open the door and in front of you stands an adult Red Dragon…
Name: Red Dragon Scale Metal Set
Description: This is a set of metal dice with a “dragon scale” design on the outside in a deep blood red with raised gold numbers in a very smooth sans-serif font that is close to Brandon Grotesque but a little more blocky. The 6 and 9 faces use dots to indicate orientation. The d10s have neither dull nor sharp waist edges. I think the lack of edge sharpness is due largely to the raised bumps that are cosplaying as dragon scales. The bumps are closer to the “bimps” (that’s the term) on the outside of a basketball than scales. The vertices of the dice are also not terribly sharp. Stepping on the d4 will still break the skin but it’s not nearly as sharp as most of my other metal sets. The dice have a deep red color with a glossy finish. They are pleasantly heavy and the resin finish over the bumps feels nice to the touch. They are available in a dozen or two different color combinations. I think all of the chromatic and metal dragons are represented.
Size (d20): ~23mm
Where did they come from: My local game store! I’m always happy when I can find good dice at the local shop.
How much did they cost: $45 (I think? it’s been a while since I bought them)
Material / color: Metal (Zinc) in glossy deep red with gold numbers
Quality: Very good. The gloss finish is keeping them chip-free so far and the only blemishes I see are spots of the red undercoat getting onto the gold numbers in places
Readability: Extremely high. This is one of the few times that gold numbers actually look good on a set of dice. With such a deep red, they could have used any of several different light colors for the numbers and the readability would have still been excellent. If you’re rolling these dice on your tray table across the aisle from me on a flight to the Heathrow airport, I won’t even have to turn my head toward you to see if you made that Dexterity saving throw.
Value: Decent. These would probably be dirt cheap at Amazon (yep, my search came up with sets for $22). As I’ve said before, I will happily keep my local game store in business paying $45 for this set even if their cost is $22 (or lower). Keep stocking this level of dice at the shop and I’ll keep buying them.
Overall Rating: 8/10 This set looks very nice, feels great, has great weight. They don’t have the top-tier dice pizzazz / oomph / zing / gravitas / <next synonym> but they’re only a step below that.
Attempts needed to roll a natural 20: 10 rolls
Ten d20 rolls: 3, 6, 10, 2, 17, 8, 13, 18, 3, 9 (8.9 avg) I rolled these through my dice “tower” (which I’ll review in the near future). I rolled 2 more sets of ten rolls without the dice “tower” and they averaged: 12.3 and 11.4. I’d call that reasonably balanced.
4d6 drop 1 stat block: 9, 12, 9, 13, 16, 15 (74 total): An unbalanced Dwarf Cleric from the Freelands who is a recovering gambling addict.
I’m back to a normal stat block total. For reference: the Standard Array method totals to: 72 and Point Buy totals to: 69.
Random Tables rolls:
Potions: 46 – Potion of Healing (Spoiled): Gain 2d4+4 hit points and gain a randomly chosen condition for 1d4 hours: either poisoned, blinded, or deafened.
Market Stalls: 30 – The Sprig of Muslin – a middle-upper class hat and accessory shop.
Final Thoughts: This is a solid dice set with a few quirks. They’re a beautiful red color and very readable. There’s no tilting your head or moving your glasses when you’re looking at what you rolled. Big bold numbers in a high contrast colored font is what I love to see. The production got a little sloppy with the red getting onto the sides of the gold numbers. Look at the picture of the d6 above as an example. You can see where the bottom and sides of the ‘2’ have red on them.
These dice are not quick to settle when you roll them. The weight of the dice would usually see to that but with the bumps… er.. dragon scales, the dice bounce a little bit and even sometimes slide along one side for a split second before they continue rolling. Sometimes they’ll even stop on a number and then slide quite a ways while coming to a stop still on that number.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re still a very nice set of dice to own and I could see absolutely owning these in several different color combinations. I will definitely 100% buy a set to match the next Dragonborn character I play. Don’t hold your breath though as there are so many other more interesting (to me) races to play than a Dragonborn. Dragonborn still have a place in my heart as the first character I ever played in 5e was a Dragonborn. (Privax Narthas, a Red Dragonborn Fighter). I think it’s also the only time I ever played a first level character. Thankfully the DM gave us the time-honored traditional job of killing rats in a church basement which I hope every D&D player gets to experience at least once.
I digress though. These are a fine set of dice to own and if you find yourself browsing the dice case in a game store and spot a set of these, buy them dammit! You could do so much worse than these.
After last week’s complaint about buying too many dice, look at me here reviewing an older set of dice that I already owned. I meant to review a different set of dice that I already owned but I couldn’t find them so we get this set. I do confess that I ordered 3 sets of sharp-edge dice from the Critical Role shop earlier this week. (they’re another place that I’m always happy to buy dice from even though historically their dice have been mostly terrible). I’m hopeful about these 3 sets and if they’re not that great, I’ll donate them to my local game store to use as prizes in their next giveaway. Now say it with me:
Support 👏 Your 👏 Local 👏 Game 👏 Store 👏!!!
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